


The Wonderful Life In You

by darknesscrochets



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, Not Beta Read, Spoilers for S4, poor coping mechansims, poor self-care, so you know par for the course with wilde, spoilers for RQG 156
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24297730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darknesscrochets/pseuds/darknesscrochets
Summary: "The temple of Aphrodite provided a letter to the Harlequins… I've had to read it myself."A Wilde moment mentioned in RQG 156.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 21
Kudos: 93





	The Wonderful Life In You

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively: Wilde can have a bit of hope, as a treat. Massive spoilers for 156 as well as warnings for poor self care and coping mechanisms (so, you know, standard Wilde). Take care of yourselves!

An envelope arrives at the inn nearly a day after the team departs. It's not the usual mail day, but few enough things happen on schedule at this point that it doesn't strike Wilde as unusual.

The envelope lands in his office by way of Barnes; most mail to the inn ends up here, passed on by Barnes or Zolf. Wilde's responsible for communication outside their team, but he doesn't take deliveries himself; it'd be a careless risk of exposure, and they can't afford more of those.

The envelope isn’t flagged as urgent. Wilde only means to leave it aside for another hour or so, while he works through the previous day’s missives. The innkeeper comes by with the usual suggestion of a meal, bowl firmly yet politely placed atop the paperwork on Wilde's desk. Wilde ignores it in favor of the work underneath. The topmost one _is_ marked urgent, and he really does need to know if there are updates on the research out of Cairo, if he’s to make any progress. If-- _when_ the team doesn’t make it back from the Institute, this might well be their only active lead.

The information he decodes from Cairo leads him back to last week’s message from his contacts in Damascus, and Damascus connects the dots further. By the time he manages to look up again it must-- _must it?_ \--be hours later, at least if the dimming light and the innkeeper's sigh as he replaces the bowl are anything to go by. He's hungry now, or what feels close enough these days. Weeks of nightmares on and off have done a number on his appetite. He's practically trained in self-deprivation at this point; missing a meal or two does nothing. Half the B-team are still wandering around the inn tonight, but Carter's too drunk to notice much and Barnes only frowns as he passes the door Wilde’s left open. Zolf, when he's around, has little patience when it comes to self-neglect. Other people's selves, at least.

Zolf may not be around in person--Wilde only has himself to thank for that, considering--but the thought is enough to spark an image of his fri--colleague, who’d be rather disappointed in the Wilde’s current state of being.

Wilde sighs. He lights a few candles with a cursory whistle of a cantrip to chase away some of the gloom that's crept into the room and pulls the bowl over from where it's now perched on the edge of his desk.

The meal forces work out of his head enough that Wilde notices the letter again after a few bites. He pulls it over--he might as well get _something_ done while he eats, and though it's not marked as urgent, he does like to get to things promptly.

The envelope is thick; not unusual, though he frowns at the insignia. He doesn't often receive missives from the Aphrodite lot. Wilde takes his letter opener and cuts through the envelope. It holds two papers, neatly folded; one bears his name, neatly written on the outside of the paper.

The older parchment, unnervingly, is made out to Zolf, Azu, and Hamid. And himself.

Wilde pauses, but reaches for the newer paper first. The message, from a paladin of Aphrodite, tells a tale that seems too strange to be false--a letter nearly two millennia old, destined specifically for the LOLOMG? Supposedly from the founder of the Harlequins herself, no less.

He skims the note again for any of the usual code words; he finds none. This isn't cover for another message, then, but he hadn't really thought it was, given Curie’s almost certainly looked it over herself, and hadn't passed on a message of her own. Absurder things have happened in his particular line of work--gods know, he's screwed some of them--but due diligence has its merits, even working outside of the more rigid structure of the meritocracy. It's a lesson he's learned a few times over by now. Often with bloody reinforcement.

Wilde refolds the note, and turns to the other message. It's really something of a relic, traveling through time to end up at his desk. The parchment must be enchanted, for the original to have survived this long. What could this nigh-mythical Ava, founder of the Harlequins, have to say to someone in his position? He'd almost assume it's a codename, but for the paladin of Aphrodite vouching for the source of the letter.

Wilde gently unfolds the old parchment; it's more like a skin than anything he’s seen recently outside a museum, and it feels just a bit off to hands used to modern paperwork. He scans the page. At first glance the handwriting isn't at all familiar.

The opening he reads is another matter entirely.

_Alright, mates. Sorry about the errorebus--it's been so long that you all speak Latin in my dreams._

Wilde blinks. The letter is on his desk. He doesn’t remember dropping it. His hands feel… numb. A different sort of lifeless than what he’s used to, because his emotions are nowhere near as dulled as he normally tries to keep them. As Wilde needs them to be, if he's about to read what… whatever this is.

Wilde avoids looking at the letter as he stands and heads towards the liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. He pauses a moment, and turns back to shut and lock the door. No need for anyone to walk in the mess he-- _this_ will potentially become. Locked in with his emotions, he whispers the tune that unlocks the _other_ cabinet, the one he's quite sure Carter hasn't managed to raid yet, and fills a glass with whiskey.

Alcohol in reach, Wilde sets the glass down on the desk and sits. He smooths out the page, holds it in hands that do not shake from anything but hunger.

He reads.

_Alright, mates. Sorry about the errorebus--it's been so long that you all speak Latin in my dreams. But you know I wasn't all that good in English to start._

_I got no proof you made it back. But I believe you did. I believe that you’re okay, somewhere…_

* * *

It's--it's not what he thought it would be, and yet somehow it fits so perfectly as a closure to the collection of shadows that made up Sasha Rackett. Grizzop sparked so brightly but so briefly. Sasha, though--Sasha lived on for _decades_ , an amount of time that seems so far out of reach for anyone in their chosen career of saving the world. She matured so far away from her native London. Experienced the end of civilization-- _an end_ , one he expects was so much worse than what they're living through now. Sasha who's-asking came out of that forged into kindness of a sort. Gods, she raised _kids_ , _generations_ worth of them, with a love he's pretty sure she herself rarely got to know.

Carefully, deliberately, Wilde places the letter back on the desk. Out of range of any… unfortunate mistakes that may come from alcohol held in hands that are now just a shade off from steady. 

A child. She _named a kid_ after _him, Oscar Wilde_ , a man hidden behind an abrasive mask he'd never thought she even liked, pieced together with puns she might have. A man who can admit, a few drinks in, can be… difficult, to get along with.

(Well. She also named one after _Bertie_ , for Apophis's sake. He thinks, however, his point still stands.)

They never met at the best of times; the nature of their roles meant they only really spoke in moments stolen over the span of hectic months spent saving the world. The situation's only gotten worse, since. But Sasha, he thinks, saw the end of Rome. Somehow she came out on the better end of it. She made a life; and if not a happy one, then a content one, by the sounds of it. 

He looks at the letter again. He's not folded it back up, and he can still see that unfamiliar handwriting, echoing with a familiar tone. A voice that's given them a gift, a story he would never dare to hope for, but finds himself doing so anyways. Hoping, that is. More than a bit, if he's honest, which Wilde is not often with himself these days.

His hand, still numb, has found its way to his scar again. It's a tell, one he needs to break before a dead--gone, they're gone until proven otherwise--a dead comrade notices and uses it against him. Hope, too, is something they can use against him. As he folds the letter up, though, Wilde thinks, _sometimes hope is worth it_. Keeps him going when nothing else will. A bit like Zolf that way.

Maybe this time the hope is worth it. Barnes and Carter are set head out later, and the teams will return to him, or not, within the next day. Wilde can allow himself that bit of hope. It’ll keep the cold at bay for a little while longer. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic can also be summarized in meme form
> 
> Wilde in 156: no emotion  
> Letter from sasha: arrives  
> Wilde: … one emotion
> 
> Letter quotations from RQG 156, in case it isn't clear. Please let me know if you spot egregious errors or typos, I’ve not written fic in… a while…


End file.
